


Ape Dos Mil

by deciding



Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Drama, F/M, Gen, Other, Soulmates, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deciding/pseuds/deciding
Summary: James didn’t have a strategy for what the universe had planned for him. And as someone who knew a lot about how time, space, speed, gravity, and inertia came together (as a sniper he knew a lot about ballistics), he knew the laws of the universe, much like the laws of physics, weren’t by accident.It was why he knew that where soulmates were concerned, the laws of the universe couldn’t be broken.Everyone had a soulmate. Law of the universe. Matter of fact. Full stop.
Relationships: Teresa Mendoza & James Valdez, Teresa Mendoza/James Valdez
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Ape Dos Mil

**Author's Note:**

> TW: They are brief, but suicidal thoughts are touched upon.

She knew she hated him from the moment she laid eyes on him. Teresa’s parents had died when she was a little girl and she’d practically raised herself, so she didn’t exactly have any role models to set an example for her and teach her to be mild mannered, or to teach her that hate was not the opposite of love. She was emotionally driven, and the things she felt, she felt deep in her soul. But anyway, it was a matter of principle. She hated him. Teresa was in Dallas, in Camila Vargas’ warehouse where the prostitutes and drug mules slept, and he was in the space that could be considered the bullpen. When their eyes met for the very first time, she felt the fire ignite and build inside her chest, her heart like a caged bird trying to escape her ribs, blood thick as lead in her anger.

Teresa knew who he was even before she was escorted into the bullpen. She’d only been in Dallas for a day, knew Aveline’s name for less than half an hour before she overdosed, but the girls in the warehouse talked about him. James.

He was somewhat of a lieutenant but also somewhat of a floor manager, which when compared to each other on a scale of relevance and importance, were roles with massive disconnect. As Teresa stared blankly ahead when he said _look at me_ to take a photo for her newly minted fake passport, she understood why Camila had picked him to be the floor manager.

James was the carrot Camila dangled in front of everyone—the girls and the sicarios—to get them to do what she wanted. He was the Taylor Vaughan in the world of the warehouse; everyone would either willingly fuck someone’s shit up to be him, or, they would lose their shit to be fucked by him. It seemed to suit him—looking good while doing bad things. He was who they could never be, or never be with, and that was exactly how Camila wanted it.

And Teresa got it, his appeal. Objectively, James was attractive. From the way the waves of his hair swooped out of place and over his forehead to his black attire to his neck tattoo to the slight rasp in his voice—his accent distinctly American but without any regional traces to indicate which part of the country he was from. Teresa wasn’t even sure he was Hispanic, though when one of the guards said something to him in Spanish, he understood and answered back in English. He wasn’t like the other men who had the privilege of walking around into the bullpen without being escorted there. There was an air of mystery surrounding James and it was that—the unknown about him—that appealed to everyone.

James’ other role, as lieutenant, made more sense once they left the warehouse. Teresa decided she could add his driving style to the list of things she hated about him as soon as he changed gears and stepped on the gas. She’d swallowed down 23 small bags of coke and he drove like his special assignment was to give her motion sickness, not to get her into a conveniently unlocked custodian’s closet in the airport where she would throw up the precious product so one of Camila’s VIP clients could get his delivery on time.

But James was good at his job. Even after he got Teresa riled up, even after she called him an asshole, even after he told her she was going to die, he got her into the custodian’s closet and she threw up every last baggie of coke. He was so good at his job, in fact, that when she was barely hanging on, declared she could not possibly go any further, he’d decided, _no_ , it wasn’t her moment to tap out yet. James pulled the bottle of soap out of the dispenser and poured it into her mouth until she heaved on her own gag reflex one more time and the last three bags came up.

After, he carried on like luck and fate and destiny had made no difference in the outcome. He seemed like one of those people who would laugh in the face of the universe. He made the final delivery, barely grazing shoulders with the recipient, no more than a finger under his nose like he was sniffing against some allergens in the air before he put his jacket back on. Teresa thought there was a momentary almost-smirk on his lips to indicate he took pride in completing the job, whatever the means had been, but she couldn’t be sure because she wasn’t looking at him as they went down the escalator.

The whole time in the airport, the words spoken between them were few, the directive he gave her to _throw that shit up now_ the most pronounced. They didn’t speak again until they were in the back of the taxi van, on the way back to the warehouse, where she would be back behind the chain-link fence and the girls in her compartment would give her the cold shoulder because they wanted to fuck her up for getting the all-important delivery job with James when she’d been in Dallas for all of a day.

“How did you know about the soap thing?” Teresa asked.

For a second, she thought James would ignore her. They still had yet to look at each other in the taxi van. It was awkward. They were strangers who’d just gotten through a trust fall exercise of the most extreme level—with a live obstacle course integrated into it, no less. It was a weird way to make a connection and bring up forced intimacy in a sense, because it was a shared experience, what they’d done. Teresa was well aware she couldn’t trust Camila’s right hand, and she hated him on principle, but when the value of her life was equated to no more than a drug delivery, and she had to put her life in his hands, he’d come through.

When James came through with his answer, he didn’t hesitate. “When I was a kid, I was trying to ditch school. I drank half a bottle.” James stopped for a pause, then, “Never did it again.”

His tone seemed to indicate doublespeak, like he was trying to tell her something else, not just trivia from his childhood that kept her alive for another day. She hadn’t been sure that would be the case when they left the warehouse to go to the airport. She hadn’t even been sure when she defiantly told him, at the construction road block, he needed to get her to the airport on time to get the job done, and even less so when he told her _you’re gonna die_ before sliding his aviator sunglasses back on. But she didn’t dare look at him in the taxi, didn’t want to let him see her show any signs of weariness, especially after he’d been the one who kept her from throwing in the towel. Teresa rolled her eyes and she hoped he saw that rather than the tears she was desperately willing not to let fall.

What James had done to get the job done, to get _her_ to get the job done, reminded Teresa she was still alive. And the stark feeling of Teresa’s own breath, of her rage-filled heart beating reminded her of who wasn’t. Güero.

He was the love of her life and he was gone. Not just gone. Dead.

So while James was back at Camila’s club, smoking in her office and being told _this Mendoza girl, keep an eye on her_ , Teresa sat on her dirty mattress on the concrete floor, contemplating if she was even glad James went into tactical overdrive and made sure she made it through the day, made it back to sleep on the floor of the warehouse.

Teresa knew she didn’t want to be in Dallas. She didn’t want to be where she was, one of Camila’s girls, out of contact with Brenda, out of the future she’d been planning. She wanted her life back. She wanted to be with Güero.

He wasn’t her soulmate but he was the love of her life. She knew the love they had was as good as it would ever be for her. Most people couldn’t be so lucky, like her parents, to not only choose to love each other of their own accord but also find out they were soulmates as well. Their souls were so in sync they’d even died together, killed by the local drug lords in Culiacán on the day of Teresa’s communion. Teresa knew death wasn’t romantic, but to do it with your soulmate, to be in bliss all the way up to the moment you stopped breathing and then never had to feel anything ever again—and know the other person would never endure any other pain either—well, there was something to that.

Güero wasn’t her soulmate. But he loved her. He chose her. And that was enough.

Teresa wished she’d been by his side to see him off. It would have been the most terrible pain she’d ever experienced in her life, but at least she could have seen him. She was still in the most terrible pain of her life without him anyway. She was juggling the hurt in her heart to mourn her loss with the fire of her rage at what she had to do to survive. Teresa had always known Güero wasn’t her soulmate, but she loved him so deeply, so if she were to be proven wrong, and if he was, the hurt in her heart for him would have been all-encompassing and she wouldn’t feel anything else. But she felt so much—of everything—so she could tell mourning Güero was only part of what she was processing. They weren’t soulmates but he was dead anyway and she’d be sleeping on a warehouse floor in Dallas because she loved him. It was all connected.

So maybe, just maybe, part of her wished James hadn’t made sure she made it through the day. Death wasn’t romantic but then at least she would feel nothing at all.

Truth be told, the burn of the anger in her chest took up so much space that it hurt more than her grief over Güero. And she hated feeling that way. Hated how it made her hate even more.

She added it to her rationale of why she hated James.

\-----

Every single time he rolled up to the warehouse, all eyes were on him. James wasn’t oblivious to anything—that was the point, that was why he was in the position he was in. He set the tone. He joked around with the guys patrolling the compound but knew how to set them straight. He spoke to the girls like they were his little sister’s friends but didn’t flirt with them. Camila trusted James because he could get people to trust him.

Camila reinforced her reign as the queen pin all the time – no holds barred, hotheaded, and might have someone killed for looking at her the wrong way. James was serious but…gentler. Back in his army unit, during the days of burning gasoline and blowing sands in the desert air on his first tour of Afghanistan, he was often chosen to interact with civilians in the local area and when they came to camp. He hadn’t been considered so hostile then.

So when he walked into the warehouse, he barely noticed the heads that turned or the eyes that wandered his way or the hushed whispers as he walked by. He knew everyone was well aware of him but he was used to it.

What he noticed was his target, the reason he’d shown up to the warehouse, laying on her bed, looking somewhere between distraught and dreamy. Teresa swung her legs down onto the ground when she saw him approach and block out some of the light. She rubbed at her temple before she sat up, composing herself as she went. James felt what he thought was a pang of guilt at the sight of her, looking so tired and worn down. Batman had almost succeeded at dragging her by the hair back to Mexico.

Truthfully, James couldn’t believe she was still alive. He’d told her as much the night before when he gave her the facts: she shouldn’t expect to get lucky and saved by the state troopers on Camila’s payroll again and he didn’t intend to get caught in crossfire meant for her. So he didn’t understand the feeling that came over him whenever he was around her, the feeling that he had to help her and make sure she survived whatever job they were on, because every single situation they’d been in was dangerous and had the potential to land everyone involved in jail or six feet under.

But he couldn’t think about that. She should get used to being tired and having danger as a baseline if she was going to succeed in the business. It was her who said she wanted to be all in, to survive by the skin of her teeth. So James needed Teresa to come through for him on…well, it was somewhat of a side project. Because he’d gotten his hands on the address of Manuel Jimenez’s placeholder, Eric Watson. The Birdman. James needed Teresa to attend a party being thrown at Eric’s; she was the perfect candidate because she was new so no one in the Dallas social scene knew her.

“What time is it?” Teresa kept her eyes on the ground, avoiding the light from the warehouse windows illuminating the dust motes in the air.

“It’s almost three,” James said flatly, then emphasized, “ _PM_.”

Teresa let out a long sigh but didn’t respond to his badgering.

“Get up,” James muttered. “You’re coming with me.”

She finally looked up at him and made eye contact, squinting slightly against the afternoon light, but didn’t make a move to get up. James rubbed his fingers against his thumb impatiently. She sat still.

“Where?” Teresa asked.

James clenched his jaw. They still had a stop to make for a wardrobe upgrade before Eric’s. None of Camila’s girls had anything close to appropriate for what Teresa would need. Not that that was their fault, but they couldn’t afford it. Teresa would need something from Kim’s closet. Something _he_ could afford.

Nevertheless, James wasn’t going to wait around for Teresa to vet the activity he’d signed her up for. She just had to get dressed up to go to a party and put a phony smile on her face. The less time they spent talking about it the better. The sooner they left the warehouse the better.

But he chose his response carefully. Thus far, Camila had put Teresa into situations she was nowhere near ready for, adding to the risk and danger. But if that was what Teresa wanted—she’d gone on a spiel about making herself indispensable, after all—then that was how he’d present the situation. If she was serious about becoming indispensable, about being in deep with the cartel, then she had a lot to learn, starting with the party.

“I’m going to kill someone,” James said.

He walked away to give her a few minutes to get ready and let his words settle in. James walked into the bullpen. He nodded at The Charger, who was furiously swiping right on his phone. James knew what it meant: it was Charger’s night off and he was desperately trying to get a date with any woman willing.

Charger cursed in Spanish under his breath and James offered a hand to check on the settings he’d selected on the dating app. “What, no takers?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Charger huffed. “Last week I got a match in like five minutes.”

James tapped around on the phone, going back to the main screen. He didn’t bother telling Charger he’d chosen a terrible default picture for his profile, afraid to get roped into having to take a new one for him. Instead, James navigated to the settings and increased the location radius. Charger would have more luck if it encompassed the area all the way to Fort Worth.

“Try that,” James said, tossing the phone back.

Charger caught the phone against his chest and adjusted it in his hands before he resumed swiping right. James scratched at his facial hair absentmindedly, waiting for the mood to change, entertaining Charger’s woes as he gave Teresa a few minutes to get ready.

“Aha!” Charger’s eyes lit up with delight when the _It’s a Match!_ notification pinged on his phone a minute later. “ _Si, mami_.”

He flashed the screen to James to show off his match, a blonde woman who was very clearly a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and not the actual person who’d swiped right on him. For Charger’s sake, James hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed by the appearance of the real person behind the screen when he showed up to meet his date in Arlington.

James bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. “Good luck.”

“ _Mil gracias, Jaime_.” Charger was already waving him off, typing out a message to the supposed professional cheerleader. “Quiet night in for you and the hot redhead tonight?”

“Nah,” James shook his head and gestured in the direction of where he’d left Teresa moments ago, “business to attend to.”

“Yeah?” Charger shrugged. “That’s why you’re the boss.”

James almost rolled his eyes. He wasn’t the boss, but Charger wasn’t completely off base, since he was in close proximity and acted as the right hand for the boss. For as much as everyone at the warehouse was vying for Camila’s attention, hoping to move up the ranks, they were all a lot of talk and very little action. James had gotten into Camila’s good favor because of his actions, because he could get a job done saying very little at all.

Infiltrating Eric’s party would be one more piece of evidence to add to his body of work. Camila didn’t even know he was setting up to take Eric out when it became necessary. Eric was a thorn in the side of the Vargas operation in Dallas, and James had already foreseen how much more of a problem he would become with Camila and Epifanio on the outs, their feud escalating in real time. Once James got the go ahead—and he _would_ get the go ahead—ending The Eric Problem would be swift, because he’d already gotten things set up. All the missed nights with Kim would be made up for in the end.

James bumped Charger’s shoulder with his knuckles. “See you tomorrow, man.”

He walked back over to where he’d left Teresa, nodding at Claudio who opened the gate for him as he went.

Teresa’s back was turned to him as he approached, making her bed. James meant to ask if she was ready to go but his voice got caught in his throat when he saw how she’d made the bed. Even though it was a thin foam mattress on a rusty frame, she’d made her space stand out. It was nice and neat, a clean diagonal line folded into the corner. It was the same way nurses made beds in the infirmary and the way soldiers did in the barracks. James believed there were certain skills from boot camp that could never be unlearned. It was how _he_ made the bed.

A tightening in his chest spurned a realization. Since Teresa had shown up, he couldn’t understand why he felt the need to protect her and keep her alive. After she’d completed her first delivery job, the one where she threw up drugs in an airport supply closet, he’d even had her stuff moved to the section of the warehouse with the mules, so she’d sleep elevated off the floor instead of right on top of the concrete. _Thank you for putting me here_ , she’d told him before he advised her to lay low and let Camila get bored of her—which Teresa then did the exact opposite of.

Of course. Those had been signs. It had been the universe creeping up on him and setting down the cushions to make the landing softer when the realization knocked him off his ass.

James knew Teresa was trouble. He’d told her as much, with some snarl in his voice and his eyes narrowed, as the sound of bass from the speakers in Camila’s club thumped into their conversation the night before. Pointing out the dangerous nature Teresa possessed was a warning—to her and to himself—not to get too close so she didn’t pull him down with her. The feeling he couldn’t place when he was around her would land him in serious trouble if he wasn’t careful. And he had plans for a future, completely separate and away from the Vargas cartel.

James was smart, pragmatic, and strategic. He liked to stay at least one step ahead. He relied on logic and facts. He was too sensible for myths and superstitions. But he didn’t have a strategy for what the universe had planned for him. And as someone who knew a lot about how time, space, speed, gravity, and inertia came together (as a sniper he knew a lot about ballistics), he knew the laws of the universe, much like the laws of physics, weren’t by accident.

It was why he knew that where soulmates were concerned, the laws of the universe couldn’t be broken.

Everyone had a soulmate. Law of the universe. Matter of fact. Full stop.

With so many people on earth though, the likelihood of finding one’s soulmate was slim to none. When soulmates did meet, it was far from conventional, at a time and place least expected, because so much else needed to align for the meeting to happen. Soulmates could meet and not even realize who they were to each other. And the telltale sign you’d found your soulmate, it was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing. It was finding the other person in the middle of doing something exactly the same way you would do it, learned and applied in a different context and setting than you. The action was a run of the mill thing, too, something that wasn’t a big deal.

There was debate over whether finding one’s soulmate was an act of gratitude or betrayal from the universe. Because although soulmates existed and could occasionally find each other, it didn’t mean they had to be together or love each other or even like each other. Soulmates didn’t even have to find out at the same time that they were soulmates. So it didn’t surprise James the universe had hit him right between the eyes with the revelation while Teresa was in the dark.

She couldn’t know, and how could she? When would she have been a witness to the way James folded over the corner as he made the bed in the past, and when would she get a chance to witness it in the future? It wasn’t even something he did in the present; Kim always made the bed since they’d moved into the townhouse.

All things considered, it probably _was_ an act of betrayal on the universe’s part. The odds of someone dying on their birthday were so much better than all of the stars aligning. It was why people made their plans and chose to love without the universe in mind.

James cursed the universe when Teresa turned around and questioned him for staring at her bed blankly, for too long. “Something wrong?”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. He was sure if Teresa knew, she would agree the laws of the universe changed nothing between them. She was so in love with her now-dead boyfriend—Epifanio’s godson who’d stolen from him and gotten her into this mess—that it led her to making her bed in a warehouse in Dallas. Maybe she loved that traitor so much she was an unbeliever and didn’t think she had a soulmate at all.

“Are you ready?” James finally asked.

He couldn’t give a direct answer to her question because something _was_ wrong. His life as he knew it had just been derailed. He had new knowledge he’d have to carry around like a burden in silence for God knew how long. And when he looked at her, looked at the fold in the sheet behind her, and felt the pit in his stomach telling him to look out for her and protect her from whatever was coming, James knew with every fiber of his being it was true. They were soulmates. Law of the universe. Matter of fact. Full stop.

“Yes,” Teresa said.

James didn’t wait for her to follow or make sure she was still behind him when he turned on his heel and made his way toward the exit. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t need a soulmate. He didn’t need another liability. He needed Teresa to put on a nice dress and learn about the business.

**Author's Note:**

> [Story Notes](https://jerepars.tumblr.com/post/641920783424290816/ape-dos-mil-extended-story-notes) are on tumblr, where I’m [@jerepars](https://jerepars.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Hi. There's a fluffy future fic I really want to get through before I continue with this, so I'll leave it as a 1/1 for now (and in case it takes me some time to circle back around), but this is really meant to be the introduction to the story. There will be more.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'd love to know your thoughts. Feedback is always appreciated. <3


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